Venomous snake found in plane overhead storage on AirAsia flight

The small snake was discovered slithering through the AirAsia plane's overhead lockers, on the way to Phuket. Photo / Wannabnailsalon

Travellers on an AirAsia flight from Bangkok to the resort island of Phuket were alarmed to spot something slithering through the overhead storage.

The Thai AirAsia service erupted into chaos with some passengers rushing to get away from the snake, while others wanted a closer look.

One video shared to the TikTok account @wannabnailssalon, showed the aftermath of the event. While some cowered behind plane seats others crowded over the high-vis clad worker who had finally contained the snake. It seems they can’t look away, and the video has racked up four million views since it was published two days ago.

Video showed a brave cabin crew member trying to coax the serpent into an empty water bottle. No thankssssss!

In a statement, AirAsia said that the airline was aware of the incident which occurred on flight DF3015 on January 13.

The small snake was discovered slithering through the AirAsia plane's overhead lockers, on the way to Phuket. Photo / Wannabnailsalon, @TikTok

While there were no details about how the snake got onboard the plane, it appeared to be a juvenile Golden Tree Snake. Found in the region around Bangkok and Pattaya these tree snakes are mildly venomous but considered harmless to humans.

The stowaway snake is not as unusual as you might think. Another AirAsia plane was affected by a spotted python flying from Kuala Lumpur to Sabah.

“This is a very rare incident which can occur on any aircraft from time to time,” the airline told CNN at the time.

AirAsia said its crew were trained to handle wildlife and snakes found onboard, and its first step was to relocate passengers away from the snake.

Golden Tree Snakes are small mildly venomous snakes found around the Bangkok Area of Thailand. Photo / Pattaya Chonburi, CC

AirAsia exits Auckland

In December the South Asian carrier said it was quitting New Zealand.

The budget, long-haul wing of the airline AirAsiaX made an unexpected announcement that it would be suspending its Auckland to Sydney service.

As a budget option AirAsia’s decision to slither out of New Zealand is bad news for travellers looking for cheap flights to Australia.

AirAsia chief executive Benyamin Ismail said the last Transtasman routes would be axed next month, but hoped that Auckland would be back on the network soon.

“We truly regret having to make this tough decision to temporarily suspend our services to and from Auckland from early February,” he said.

Affected passengers booked to travel later in the year would be refunded.